away, her hands cupped around her mouth as she leans over the base of the rock bridge up to my realm of one. “Elisha!” I shout down. “You nearly sent me tumbling over the edge!”
“You’re being dramatic,” she says. Her black curly hair is pulled back with a looping purple ribbon, her cream tunic fluttering over her olive slacks. “You do realize the ceremony starts in half an hour, right?”
I sigh, looking down at my bare foot.
“So?” she says, resting her hands on the front of her legs. “Let’s go!”
“One minute,” I say, and I turn around to the burst of wildflowers for one last moment before I start down the steep outcrop. The jagged edges of rock slice against the sole of my foot as I climb, the dust gathering on the front of my dress.
“What happened to your shoe?” she asks.
“I lost it when you yelled at me,” I say to the rock surface. You’d think Elisha would worry about distracting me on this narrow rock bridge, but she knows I’ve climbed it a hundred times. She thinks I’m as invincible as I do.
“So you’re going to do the ceremony in one shoe?” She giggles. “I’m sure the Elders won’t notice.”
“If they do, you’re the one who’ll be in trouble.”
“Sure,” she says, rolling her eyes. We both know I’m the one who gets in trouble, even when it’s her fault.
My feet finally touch the long grasses at the bottom of the outcrop, and I push myself upright.
“Ashes, your dress,” she says, and then her hands are all over my robe, trying to wipe off the dusty grains of rock embedded in the fabric.
I laugh. “They do look like ashes. Maybe I’ll get bonus points for authenticity.”
Elisha rolls her eyes. “Let’s hope you rise anew when Aban kills you.”
“Blasphemy,” I tease in Aban’s deep voice, and we both snicker as the wind gusts at our clothes and hair.
Then the bell tolls in Ulan, and the smirks drop from our faces.
“Come on,” Elisha says, grabbing my hand. We run toward the village and the citadel, standing proudly in the distance, its tower made entirely of blue crystal.
Elisha is the only one who knows the real me. We’ve been friends since I wandered into Ulan when I was three and deathly bored. Her family lives in the village, and I visit often. The population is smaller now after the Rending, so hierarchy doesn’t mean as much as it did in ancient times. But my father is still heralded as the Monarch, and he insists on some amount of pomp and display. He says it settles people to know someone’s in charge. They feel at ease knowing there’s someone noble and dignified watching over them, whose life is dedicated to serving them and their best interests. So I carry on all removed and dignified in front of the villagers, and it’s only Elisha who sees me for who I really am—another girl, like her, who wants to pull funny faces and drop buckets of water on the Elders and climb the outcrops of Ashra. A girl who wants to squelch handfuls of sand at the bottom of Lake Agur and come up just as her lungs are bursting. Someone who’s free, who flies through the wind like a sunbird or a butterfly. Someone like Elisha.
But that isn’t who I get to be. I’m Princess Kallima, daughter of the Monarch, heiress of the Red Plume and all of Ashra. The Eternal Flame of Hope for what’s left of mankind.
I’m the wick and the wax, my father always tells me. I must burn for others, even if it means I will burn and crumble for those whose path I light. “We cannot return to those dark days,” he says, and I know he’s right, but it doesn’t mean I always like it.
The dusty sand of the roadway feels hard and cool against my bare sole as we run toward the citadel. A hum grows louder in the distance, the vibration echoing through me as we hurry. It seems too far away as I gasp more air into my lungs.
A dark shadow casts over us, an oval of darkness on the ground that moves faster than we can keep up with. I glance around the blue sky and see it, the wooden belly of the airship as it creaks and hums its way past us. The gears on the sides spin and the plum-colored balloon wobbles back and forth in what little breeze there is, but it’s the humming engine that keeps it moving through the air toward the landing pitch.
“What were you thinking?” Elisha huffs beside me as we run. “The Elite Guard’s already arriving. You could’ve gone to the edge of Ashra after the ceremony.”
I open my mouth to answer, but no answer comes. She’s right, but I’d thought I could escape for just a moment, just freeze time and not have to face all of this.
A momentary thought. A dream snapped in two like the pika’s fireweed sprigs.
“At least you’ll get to see him again,” she teases, but the guilt comes over her face as I don’t smile back. “I’m sorry,” she says, regretting it right away.
I shake my head. “Jonash isn’t awful.” And he isn’t. But he’s not my choice, either.
We hurry on, the citadel feeling like it’s never closer. We stop a few times to catch our breath, and I look down at my foot, smudged black from the dusty roadway.
A chime sounds through the clearing, and Elisha and I exchange worried looks. The bells are already ringing. Is it that late? She reaches for my hand and pulls me along the path, toward the bells chiming in the gleaming crystal tower of the citadel.
Maybe Aban will burn me alive, after all.
We finally reach the side of the stone building, and two of the Elder Initiates are there, straightening their robes and tying red rope belts around their waists. They look up in alarm as we stumble toward them.
“Kallima,” one of them says, his brown hair slicked back and his sandals scraping against the dirt. “I thought you’d be inside already.”
I pant. “Did Aban start already?”
He nods. “The Elite Guard arrived ten minutes ago. Elder Aban’s already reading from the annals.” Soot and ashes. I’m doomed.
“Your Highness,” the other says, a dark woman whose golden earrings swing back and forth as she reaches out her hand. I take her hand and she pulls me up the stairs into the citadel.
“Good luck,” Elisha shouts, and then the world around me is dark and silent, closed in by the shadows of the palace hallways.
I HAVE A momentary wish that the Initiate would pull me toward the northern hallways, toward the arched ceilings of the library and the rows of annals themselves. I’d rather bury myself in there, surrounded by piles of books, than face the crowds of the Rending Ceremony. But my absence wouldn’t go unnoticed, so there’s nothing to do but follow her toward the south of the building instead, into a great room lit by candles and chandeliers of glass, where my father stands with his arms outstretched like a scarecrow. Three attendants are crouched around him, straightening his robe,
